


The Regrets of Maturity

by kitsunealyc



Category: Legend (1985)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-10
Updated: 2016-10-10
Packaged: 2018-08-20 14:12:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8252054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kitsunealyc/pseuds/kitsunealyc
Summary: Once upon a time there lived a mortal woman with a patchwork soul who was loved by the Light and the Dark. Forced to choose between them, she chose the Light and ended the world.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [calliopes_pen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/calliopes_pen/gifts).



_Once upon a time there lived a mortal woman with a patchwork soul, who was loved by the Light and the Dark. Forced to choose between them, she chose the Light and ended the world._

_And nobody knew it but her._

 

***

 

The first time Lily bit Jack, he looked at her like she'd kicked a puppy.

In this new world without Darkness, nobody kicked puppies. Puppies lived rumble-tumble lives into adulthood, where they became loyal and trusted companions until they passed of old age by the fire.

Kittens – and cats – didn't exist at all.

Jack put his hand to his lip and pulled it away. The wetness glistening on his fingers was saliva, not blood, but still he blinked at her in confusion. "Lily? What's wrong? Did you stumble?"

"Y-yes. Yes, I must have stumbled. So silly. I'm sorry, Jack. There are so many roots along this path." She hadn't stumbled, but lying was another thing that only she of all the people in the world seemed to remember. Jack didn't question her. Didn't know anything but truth.

"You must be careful. Here. I'll help support you. You wouldn't want to fall." He didn't say why. Nothing bad ever happened, so why would it matter if she fell or not? But still, he held out his arm to her, sun-brown and well-muscled.

Lily took Jack's arm. "No, I wouldn't want to fall," she agreed, and again wondered how it was that only she could lie.

 

***

 

Jack only ever accompanied her as far as Nell's cottage. A child of the forest had no place in the town or her father's court. Before the Unicorn, before Darkness and the End of the World, his caution was well-founded. Lily had to sneak out to meet him, and she could never have brought Jack home as a suitor.

_It is my right to set a challenge for my suitors._

Yes. In a child's world where princesses could marry paupers. But the world Lily had lived in would never have supported her vow. The nobles of her father’s court would have shamed her and done much worse to Jack if she'd ever brought him before them. Jack was right to stay in the forest. She was right to keep him secret.

Now, Jack could easily have ventured into the world of town and trade. She could take him to her father, claim his suitor's challenge won, marry him, and nobody in their lands would blink. _Natural nobility_ , they would say, and welcome a wild, unlettered lad as their Lady's husband and their future Lord.

"Won't you let me see you home, Lily?" Jack offered, as he'd never offered before. There was no caution in him now. He might not have ever followed her home, but this strange new reality without Darkness extended beyond the forest and into town. Perhaps it covered the whole world as once the snows and ice had.

"Soon, Jack." Lily pulled away before he could kiss her.

He smiled as though it was a tease. "Then meet me tomorrow night when there's no moon. I have something to show you that can only be seen by starlight."

Only by starlight. Even the darkest night was known for its light in this new world without Darkness. Lily's gut twisted. Chills swept over her skin. The last time Jack had shown her something, it had destroyed her world.

Or was she the one who'd done the destroying?

"I will meet you," she agreed, mostly so that he would go away. Her nausea had turned into a headache. She just wanted return home to her own bed.

 

***

 

She relished the nightmares that came when she slept, shadow coursing along her limbs, surging between her thighs, and yet dispersing into smoke when she tried to grip it. She danced with herself to a tune that never ended, her feet painting blood tracks across obsidian marble floors until she was little more than a twisted grotesque groveling before an empty throne.

Even those terrors felt more real than waking in the morning to bright days, or softly falling rain, or sheep-scuttling clouds and the maddening chirping of birds. The cheerful maids smiled as though they'd only ever dreamed of being in service. They didn't resent Lily for her fine gowns or her sour moods. They didn't complain of chapped hands or long hours. In its own way, that acceptance of their lot was worse than Jack's guileless smiles. Lily found herself wishing that one of them, just one, would hate her even a little bit for the bright, servile happiness she'd cursed them with.

 

***

 

Jack took Lily to a ridge overlooking a lake of deepest blue that reflected the stars wheeling in the night sky. They lay side-by-side on a bed of moss and meadowsweet, and Lily named the stars the Court Astronomer had taught her. Jack helped her name the others: Pegasus and Daisy and Hot Cider and Sweet Kisses. The sky seemed flooded with light, but if she squinted, Lily could see beyond it. She had no name for the space between the stars, and when she asked Jack to help her with that, he blinked at her with confused sweetness and that smile she was coming to hate. "Space between...? There's just stars, Lily."

She cupped his cheek and kissed him so that she wouldn’t give in to the urge to strike him. "But the space between them must have a name," she whispered against his lips. Her hands slid down to his vest, tugging it open, slipping inside. _Darkness. Darkness is the name. Say it, Jack._

"No more than the space between us has a name." Jack responded as any boy in love might, pushing the shoulder of her gown down, lifting her breast free of her chemise. He looked stupid with wonder, and when his thumb caressed her, it was... sweet. "It's just space. Oh, Lily..." He dipped his head down to kiss her.

She cradled him to her breast, spread her legs to hold him there. "The space between us has a name," she whispered.

"Lily..." he whispered.

 _Darkness,_ she thought. She pulled his head up, forcing him to meet her eyes. "Perhaps I could be on top?"

Jack smiled that bright, crooked-toothed smile of his and said, "Whatever you want, Lily."

So he rolled onto his back, and she straddled him and pretended satisfaction while he called her name and her mind wailed another's. Jack hadn't lied; Jack _couldn't_ lie. He would give her whatever she wanted. It was just that what she wanted was as far beyond his comprehension as the space between the stars was from the ridge where they made love.

 

***

 

Jack told her where to find Oona. He didn't even ask what she wanted with the fairy.

In fact, he blushed. And Lily loved him more for that moment of shame than she'd loved him in the past moon of lovemaking. Perhaps he didn't remember Oona wanting his kisses. Perhaps he didn't remember that a tiny part of him had wanted the fairy in return. If Jack’s brief moment of betrayal had ever existed, it was gone now. But the blush remained, and it gave Lily heart.

Somewhere, even in Jack, a hint of Darkness remained.

In the gloaming twilight, under the sheltered limbs of cypress trees as old as the wind that had twisted them, the sprite’s dell was bright with phosphor-green light. Lichen grew in the grooves of the taffy-twisted limbs, granite boulders tumbled like dice from the rock face above. Even the thick moss covering the ground glimmered with reflected light.

Lily gathered her cream and gold skirts close and ventured into the twilight grove. "Oona? Fairy Oona?"

"Come to gawk at the beasties now we’re caged and declawed?" The snarl rose from the dense evergreen boughs. Flickering light and the rapid beat of hummingswift wings accompanied the sullen words. One of the glowing bits of lichen broke off, becoming the sharp-eyed sprite. Oona crouched on a low cypress branch, head tilted and eyes too wide, like a wild animal deciding between predator and prey. Her shimmering wings and diaphanous shift shone envy-green in the phosphor light. Hair like spiderfloss floated on the movement of breath from the trees and stones. Her rosebud lips split into a sneer. "Take care, mortal, or you’ll find that some still have our teeth."

Lily drank in Oona's hate like sweet wine. "You remember! You remember it. You remember him." She held a fist to her mouth to beat back a sob of relief.

"I remember nothing," Oona spat. "Memory is a mortal thing, like clocks and calendars. A fairy _is_ memory, like a tree is rings or a rock is layers. And what I _am_ is dying. We all are. The brownies are too drunk to notice. And Gump. Honey Gump." She shook her head, smacked it as though bees were attacking from all sides.

Lily captured her hands before she could injure herself. "Honeythorn Gump, you mean?" she whispered.

Oona stopped struggling against Lily's grip. Blinked too-blue eyes at her. "What's a thorn?"

Lily did sob then. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I didn't know." How could she, when even the fairies hadn't foreseen the consequences of their actions? They thought they were heroes, defeating a villain.

_I am a part of you all._

Until they'd gone too far and banished Darkness just as surely as he'd intended to banish Light.

"I'm trying to make it right," Lily whispered, though until that moment she hadn’t been sure what she was about. "Can you help me?"

Oona tilted her head this way and that, curious as a bird. She touched Lily's cheek and lifted her finger to her lips. Her eyes fluttered closed, half-moons of lace against her cheeks. She suckled the tear-stained finger like it was dewed with honey.

Oona's eyes snapped open. "More." She held Lily's face between her hands and ran her tongue up one tear trail, then the other. " _More._ " She kissed Lily's eyes, her nails digging into Lily's cheeks with animal desperation. " _MORE!_ "

The fairy was wire-strong, her cruel grip too desperate for Lily to struggle free of it. Lily's hand cracked across Oona's cheek, knocking her aside. Oona tumbled from her branch and fell to the moss-covered ground.

Crimson stained Oona's lips. She touched fingers to it. She tasted the blood as she'd tasted Lily's tears. Her gaze snapped up to meet Lily's. "I'll help you. For a kiss."

Lily watched Oona warily, clutching her pale skirts close in case the fairy decided to attack again. "You've already taken kisses from me."

"I mean a real kiss." Oona rose to a crouch, circling Lily like an old crone. Lily turned to keep her in view. The light in the grove twisted on itself, and it wasn't a sprite circling, but Jack, with that open grin of his that knew nothing of darkness. "What's wrong, Lily?" he asked, leaning close enough that she could smell the sweet mint of his breath. "Don't you like our kisses? Are they not sweet?"

"I've had enough of sweetness," Lily snapped, shoving him away. Why had she thought the fairies would set aside games when they never had before?

"Hm. Yes. So you have." Oona’s tone grew rich and rolling, decadent with promises and possibilities. She straightened, growing like a shadow in the setting sun, until she towered above Lily—red skin, bare chest, and a curving-cruel, black-lipped smile that matched the curve of those thick, ebony horns. "What would you have of me, then, my Lady?"

The question was a mockery as much as the illusion was, but Lily’s body responded as though she knew nothing of lies. She squeezed her thighs tight, gripped her skirts even tighter. "This... this isn’t real. This is a lie."

Darkness loomed over her. The heat radiating from his body sent his cloak billowing behind him. One curved claw stroked the line of Lily’s jaw, tilting her face up to his. His perusal of her lingered on her exposed throat—a predator assessing his prey—before meeting her eyes. "What is reality, my Lady? A lie is as real as any truth to those who believe it. I live in lies. Which makes me very," hot breath caressed one cheek, "very," and the other, "real."

She wanted to believe. Believe that the heat against her skin was more than fairy trickery, that the words dripping down her body thick as blood and honey promised more than dreams and memory. He pressed his thigh between her legs, coaxing them apart, forcing her skirts to ride higher. Goat fur rough and wiry abraded her flesh, and she rubbed herself against it without thought.

But, "You promised me eternity. Are your promises lies, too? As insubstantial as the wind." She gave into pettiness, to the lure of selfishness. What did it matter if he was gone because of her actions? It was his fault for believing her lie, that she didn't mean to betray him. "I want what you promised me," she demanded, a princess as petulant as any in a tale, even as she rode his thigh, as he groaned and dug clawed fingers into her shoulders. "I do not want to live in a world without you. You promised me your heart. Your soul. Your love. For eternity."

"Lady, you have it."

He sought to kiss her. She slapped him away. "I have nothing. I have lies that only I can see. I am surrounded by Light and have no shadows to shelter me from it. You have left me alone. Left us all alone."

He caught her wrists when she would have struck him again. She reveled in the pain of his grip. Smiled, an echo of the cruelty in his smile.

"Darkness is a seed that can grow into a forest to cover the world. Give me leave to plant it within you, and I promise you will never be alone."

For a moment, she hesitated. The same eternal moment of hesitation before she freed the unicorn. Who was she to invite darkness back into a world that had banished it? She was no hero. She was just a woman, a woman whose heart was mottled enough that her touch could corrupt a unicorn.

_And could seduce the Darkness with love._

"Yes," she whispered, and, "Yes!" again, and, "YES!" as she spread her legs wide and welcoming.

"So greedy, my Lady." He surged against her, laughing.

She placed her hand on his chest, pale white on crimson, and grabbed one of his ebon horns to force him to meet her eyes. Hadn't she heard a story about this? Princess Blood-on-Snow, who slaughtered her noble family with her iron dwarf army and thus gained a throne?

There was only one throne Lily wished to sit. "On one condition," she said. " _I_ want to be on top."

Darkness groaned, sagged his horn-heavy brow against hers.

"Are you afraid?" she taunted.

"Lady, I am only thinking of the last time I gave you what you wanted."

The unicorn. And the chance to kill it. Lily laughed and savored the razor's edge cruelty of it cutting up her throat. Just as she savored his moment of unease. She wanted to taste that fear as she'd tasted his blood.

"You mean... my lie? My betrayal? That moment I first let you slip inside me?" She used his horns to lift herself closer, to twist his head so she could insinuate her words into him. "'Twas your darkness in me that saved the unicorn. My betrayal was a pledge of my love."

"Then let this stand as a pledge of mine."

And he fell back to the moss-covered stones. Fur abraded her thighs, cloven hooves clopped as he planted them against stone and surged into her. She gripped his horns to keep from being thrown from his rutting, and it was all wrong, so wrong, so gloriously wrong, to spread herself open for this goat, this god, this grotesque who was everything she should despise in herself, in the world.

"Lady, your tears."

"Don't stop!" Was that growl hers, so ragged, so raw?

His tongue coursed her cheek. "They're sweet."

She kissed him. Bit him. He drew away, smiling. Blood, black as midnight, black as pitch, smeared his lip. She licked it.

"I have had enough of sweetness," she whimpered, and fell.

 

***

 

_Once upon a time there lived a mortal woman with a patchwork soul, who was loved by the Dark and the Light. Offered the chance to choose again, she chose the Dark and saved the world._

_And nobody knew it but her._

**Author's Note:**

> Happy early/late Yuletide!
> 
> Russian_blue and I both decided we wanted to write treats based on your Legend prompt from Yuletide 2014. She finished hers, but I let mine languish and ended up having to default that year on my main assignment. However, I found mine while rooting through old stuff and decided to finish it and give you your very belated treat.
> 
> Hers is still better, but I hope you enjoy this one :D


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